


To The Death

by shinealightonme



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Duty, Episode Related, Fix-It, Gen, Time Travel, chain of command
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 14:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9076792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: Becoming a temporal agent wasn't the worst thing to ever happen to Sito Jaxa, but it was the most sudden.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Star Trek Secret Santa, for halloweenpjs, who requested that I write something for my favorite minor character. I've wanted to do something with Sito Jaxa for a long time now and this was a great opportunity. I hope that you enjoy it, halloweenpjs!
> 
> In the poking around I've done I haven't found any canon or apocryphal backstory for Sito, so I made up my own details.

Sito had once had a bruise that looked just like this one, but that one had been fake.

This one throbs every time her heart beats, as though reminding her that it is real. As though she could forget.

"Quit poking at that," her cellmate says, without opening her eyes.

Sito is used to these acts of observation from her superior officer. New recruits whisper that Investigator Yar is omniscient, that she has telepathic powers, that she got cybernetic enhancements in the thirty-first century.

Sito is more wary of hero worship than she used to be. She thinks Yar probably noticed her poking at her bruise before their jailers had locked them up, and extrapolated from there.

"Makes you wish for a regenerator, doesn't it?" Sito asks. Yar has a broken arm splinted, amateurish, to her chest. She's breathing evenly, no sign of pain on her face. She looks more like a vedek at meditation than an injured prisoner.

"This planet won't have them for another fifty years."

Sito knows that; she read the mission briefing. That's why she said _wish_.

She lets herself wish for regenerators, for hot hasperat, for her unfortunate haircut to grow out, because she knows those are all things that she will have, eventually.

She doesn't wish for her own timeline, for Bajor. For the Enterprise D.

"You managed to destroy the target?"

Yar huffs through her nostrils, more irritated at the upstart apprentice doubting her skills than at her own broken arm. "Yes."

Sito breathes out very slowly, and thunks her head against the wall of the cell. She's positive she doesn't make a sound.

"Don't beat yourself up," Yar says. "The universe will do that enough for you. Don't help it."

"Aye, sir," Sito says, as plucky as she can manage.

Yar opens her eyes and scowls at Sito, just as the ship's transporter beam locks onto them and beams them out of jail.

-

Sito is no stranger to change. She'd been plucked out of her family and forced into a work camp. She'd been rescued from the work camp and placed in a refugee settlement. She'd worked her way out of the refugee settlement and into the ranks of Starfleet Academy. She fallen from grace and clawed her way back up, into a spot on the flagship of the Federation.

And then she'd been blasted out of space and into the quasi-existence of a temporal agent.

That hadn't been the worst change, but it had been the most sudden. She hadn't realized it had happened at all. One moment, she'd been in an escape pod; the next, most of her body and less than most of the escape pod had been crashing onto an unknown planet.

Time passed while she was in the wreckage. She couldn't say how long.

She thought at one point, _I hope Dal made it_.

 _I hope they find my body_.

And then there had been the woman in black, digging her out of the wreckage. And even that had just told her that she'd died, that this was a vision of the Prophets, because she recognized that woman.

"What do you know," Tasha Yar said. "Fate looks out for fools and officers of the Enterprise."

"You're dead," Sito told her.

"So are you," Yar retorted. "You get used to it."

-

Sito finishes her report quickly; some of the temporal agents moan and gripe and drag their feet doing their paperwork. Some Starfleet officers had been that way, too.

Sito has never seen the point. Living through the mission is the hard, messy part. Sitting down with a computer screen and her own thoughts, putting order to everything that had happened -- it isn't _easy_. But it makes sense. It makes the mission feel like it's really over, like she can move on.

It also helps that her role in this one was fairly brief -- _we were discovered infiltrating the laboratory; I distracted the guards while Investigator Yar destroyed the temporally displaced object_. She makes a note that she'd used Klingon fighting tactics that predated her opponents by two centuries, but as far as anachronistic information transfer went, that's pretty innocuous.

She pokes the skin around her eye. It's healed, now. But she can still imagine it aching.

An idea occurs to her. She collects her PADD and stops at the commissary to make a special request.

"Enter," Yar calls, when she knocks on the door.

Sito enters and places her PADD and the glass she'd gotten at the commissary on the desk in front of Yar.

Yar looks up from her own PADD and pulls off the impressive trick of frowning even more deeply than she had been already. "What's this?"

"My report," Sito says truthfully.

Yar pokes at the glass in front of her. "And _this_?"

"A milkshake," Sito answers.

"Why is there a milkshake on my desk?"

"You need calcium," Sito tells her. "And this is a traditional human delicacy."

"We didn't have _milkshakes_ when I was a child," Yar starts, but seems to think better of it. "Replicator, spoon."

The replicator behind her chimes as a spoon takes form.

"You're supposed to drink it with a straw."

"Are you lecturing me on old human customs?" Yar asks, and takes a scoop. "You finished your report already?"

"Yes, sir." Sito says.

"Sit," Yar waves at her, and eats another spoonful of ice cream as she picks up Sito's PADD and reads through it.

Technically, temporal agents don't have the same strict hierarchy as Starfleet officers. Sito's first training instructor had been a fuzzy, effusive woman from a species that neither Bajor nor the Federation would make first contact with until Sito's grandchildren (if she'd ever had any) were old; it had been impossible for Sito to call her _sir_.

But the old habits falls into place whenever Sito encounters an agent who's former Starfleet. And Investigator Yar has been her field supervisor for three months now.

"Good," Yar says. That is as encouraging as her compliments ever got. Some of the trainees feel that Yar is cold, distant, impossible to please. Sito likes it, that Yar isn't going to butter her up or get her drunk on praise. It's too easy to get carried away, when the right person tells you how wonderful you are.

"Change all the names around and submit it as my report, too." Yar was one of the _death (again) before paperwork_ types.

"No can do, sir," Sito said, and signed off on her PADD, officially filing the report. "Finish your milkshake."

-

"Why is it," Sito sighs, pushing her cards away from her. "That every time period I go to, everyone just wants to play poker?"

"Universal constant," Cooper says, sweeping the chips to her pile.

"Temporal constant," I'Dor corrects. Zhe is almost as bad at poker as Sito. It's generally agreed that Sito's joining poker night is a good thing, since Sito takes her losses with a sense of bemused grace and I'Dor is more prone to flipping tables.

"Murphy's Law." Safok's grin would be improperly wide even if he weren't a Vulcan. "If you were good at poker, then everyone else would just want to play something else."

"The universe is conspiring against me, specifically?" Sito asks wryly, taking a peek at her new cards. Garbage, of course.

"It is the logical explanation," Safok intones, and Cooper snorts at him.

"Stop pretending you're a real Vulcan and make your bid."

"If everything that could go wrong did go wrong, I wouldn't be here." Sito raises. Maybe this time her bluff will be convincing.

I'Dor looks her dead in the eyes and raises. So, not convincing then.

"You mean, we're all lucky to be alive and we should just be grateful?" Cooper asks.

"Most people don't get to die and then keep losing at poker."

"That we know of," Safok says.

"That's what your Prophets do, though, right?" Cooper asks Sito. "They abduct people out of the timeline. That's not so different from getting press-ganged into the temporal agency."

"They don't abduct people, mostly," Sito says. "And they're not really my Prophets."

I'Dor groans. "No religious talk at the table, I swear to the absence of god, I will punch you all."

It's a considerable threat, but not quiet enough to derail the conversation.

"I always wondered why you didn't wear an earring," Safok tells Sito.

It's a topic that's as depressing as this hand of poker. But she's stuck with both of them.

She raises again. "My earring was taken away when I was a child. I haven't had one since. Not a proper one with my family symbol on it." She shrugs. "And I would have had to make a special petition to wear it with my Starfleet uniform. It didn't seem worth it."

"You aren't worried about your pagh?" Cooper asks. It sounds like _gagh_ when she says it.

"Not really," Sito admits. "I believe in the Prophets, I guess -- 

"How could you not?" Safok asks. "You're playing poker with a bunch of aliens who live outside of time. Aliens who live outside of time and speak a bunch of cryptic nonsense isn't that much of a stretch."

Sito smiles at him. "I mean more that I'm glad Bajor had something to hold onto, during the Occupation."

"Seriously, I'm going to break this table in half and bite all of you," I'Dor says. Zhe folds, apparently too disgusted to keep challenging Sito's bluff, and Sito actually wins a hand, for a change.

-

"New assignment," Yar says, standing over Sito's table in the mess hall.

Sito, fresh off three hours of combat practice, pushes her sweaty hair out of her face and tries to look responsible and ready for anything. "Oh? Great. Does that mean you finished your report?"

"Don't talk back."

Cooper, from the other side of the table, takes a break from ogling Yar to mouth _ooooh, you're in trouble_ to Sito. Then she goes right back to ogling. Temporal agents are masters at prioritizing.

"Can I have the mission files?" Sito manages to clip the _sir_ from her question; Cooper is a twenty-sixth century anarchist, and would only make fun of her for it.

"Of course." Yar drops a PADD in front of her and nods at her, and then Cooper -- Cooper sighs, semi-audibly -- and leaves.

"You have _no_ idea how good you have it," Cooper tells Sito, when the commissary doors have shut behind Yar. "Seriously, my field supervisor was Br'N'S'r. No vowels, no sense of humor, no ass."

Sito hears all of this without really taking it in.

She is staring down at the PADD in front of her, unable to take in anything past the first sentence.

"I'm telling you," Cooper continues, "no one here cares about protocol like Starfleet did. If you don't get on that, I will. But, you know, I'll offer you first dibs, cause she's your field supervisor. I'm a lady like that."

Sito stands up.

"I have to go," she says faintly, walking quickly for the door without looking at anything.

"I didn't mean right now!" Cooper yells after her. "Wash your hair first!"

-

"Sir," Sito says, barging into Yar's office without knocking. She has the mission briefing PADD in hand; she'd been too thrown by its contents to drop it.

She had also been too thrown to remember to put down her fork, when she'd fled the commissary. That, she'd tossed down the hall ten meters back. Even extreme circumstances didn't merit showing up at your superior's door with a cheese-encrusted fork.

"Sito," Yar says, perfectly measured and calm.

"Sir -- " _I can't do this assignment,_ she thinks. Some old instinct kicks in. Starfleet training, maybe: _don't admit failure_. Or some trick learned as the smallest, hungriest kid in the work camp: _don't admit weakness_. "I protest this assignment."

"On what grounds?"

"Temporal agents are not to undertake missions that directly interfere with their own personal timelines," Sito says. It's not an exact quote, but it's as close as she can manage.

"We're going to 2319," Yar tells her. "Years before your appearance on the timeline."

"You cannot possibly tell me that _the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor_ does not affect my personal timeline!"

"Your direct family isn't inconvenienced until...2327, when your paternal grandfather was arrested. And your father was already born at that point, so really nothing happens to affect your direct timeline until -- "

"Stop it!" Sito yells. She tries to shut herself down. Tries to remember the chant for serenity and composure. Tries to not mouth off to her superior officer.

When she manages to open her eyes, Yar is staring her down, eyes cold enough to freeze Sito's blood.

"If you can't handle the mission, just say so."

"You want me to _handle_ making sure Bajoran rebels don't stop the Occupation from happening?" Sito asks. "You want me to _handle_ giving my people over to fifty years of genocide and enslavement?"

"I'm asking you to handle keeping the timeline on track so that a greater tragedy doesn't occur when the Dominion sweeps into the Alpha Quadrant."

"Well, too bad! I'm not going to do that." Sito pushed her hair out of her face again. She'd forgotten how sweaty it was, how stringy and sticky. "It's preposterous that the temporal agency can't find someone _else_ to handle this situation."

"Are you refusing orders?" Yar asked, dangerous.

"I don't think asking for clarification is refusing orders," Sito said. "And I don't think asking you to find the appropriate resource for the job is _refusing orders_. Asking me to save the life of the men who organized the genocide of my people is _beyond insane_." She squared her shoulders. "And if you boot me from the temporal agency, so be it."

Yar stared at her for a long moment.

"Is that how you feel?" she asked, eventually. "If it comes down to it, you won't protect the timeline if it doesn't match with what you want personally?"

Sito sighed, one long last gasp. These may be the last words she'd ever speak, and she should probably make them good, but she was worn out and frustrated and scared.

And she'd learned how little it mattered, if you were good at pretty speeches and nothing else.

"It shouldn't come down to that. It isn't right for you to put me in that position." Bile rose in Sito's throat. "The temporal agency is here to defend the timeline, they should defend the timeline by sending the right agent. Why am I the _first defense_. Why -- " Sito felt her throat closing up. "Why does it have to be me?"

Yar listened to all of this, and just when Sito couldn't go on any longer -- and then when she pushed herself a little bit further -- and then made herself hold on ten seconds longer.

She'd been through worse.

And before she could cave, before she could explain herself or apologize or give up, Yar put the PADD down and said, "Congratulations."

Sito blinks. "What?"

"Congratulations," Yar says again, and stands up. "You passed."

Sito blinks again. "Are you saying that this was a _test_? That the agency is just torturing me? That -- "

"Yes, and no, and fuck off," Yar says.

Sito opens her mouth, and closes it again. It's both the answer she was expecting and the answer she wasn't and, somehow, beyond expectation.

"What?"

"Yes, the temporal agency was testing you. Surprise, we want to make sure that we don't give all encompassing power over to the timeline to people who are going to use it for their own personal benefit."

"Okay, but -- "

"No, the temporal agency was not testing you, Sito Jaxa, personally. Everyone gets this eventually." Yar stares at her. "You don't think that after I died _twice_ , I didn't get tested to see if I would try to fix my own timeline?"

There wasn't anything Sito could say to that.

"And third, fuck you, because -- that last thing I said. I might have gotten my talking points out of order. I don't remember what the other thing was going to be." Yar sighed and put her head down on her hand. "I was never much for communications."

"I was pretty good at them," Sito says, her lips numb. "But I don't think I can sort this one out."

Yar shakes her head and picks back up the PADD on the table.

Sito's familiar enough with her mission statements, to recognize the shape of Tasha Yar signing and filing a document.

"You are now an official agent of the temporal agency," Tar says.

Sito slowly took a seat in the chair opposite Yar's.

"Did I say congratulations?" Yar asks. "Or are condolences more in order."

Sito breathes out slowly, struggling to keep herself even.

She'd always known exactly what she was working toward. Survival. Graduating with honors. The flagship posting. When she was alive; when she was Nova Squadron and could do anything; when she thought she could shape her own destiny.

Those days are gone. But they taught her how to stand up for other people. And how to stand up for herself.

"What's the real mission?" she asks.

Yar shakes her head. She might be smiling. "Take the rest of the day. Go punch something. Order a milkshake. Someone will come set you up with your own office tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow?" Sito's body is thrumming with exertion; she wants to go _do_ something. But she does really need a shower.

"The timeline can manage without you for that long," Yar says wryly. "Sometimes, you can take a break from fighting."

Sito heads for the door, but gathers up her courage before she can exit. "And how does that work, exactly?"

Yar looks up at her.

"Taking a break from fighting," Sito clarifies.

Yar busies herself on her PADD again. "I don't know," she admits. "If you figure it out, maybe you can write me a report about it."

"You'd never read it anyway," Sito says, and ducks out the door before Yar can decide to throw the PADD at her.

She doesn't know where she's going, or what she's going to do with herself for the day.

She stops halfway down the hall, and breathes.

She'll figure something out.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this fic, you can [reblog it on tumblr](http://toast-the-unknowing.tumblr.com/post/155014336950/to-the-death-shinealightonme-star-trek-the)!


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